Fort Columbus
Fort Columbus was a fortification and army post in Governors Island, New York Harbor, New York City, New York, from 1806 to 1904. Fort Jay Fort Columbus was the name of a fortification and later the army post that developed around it. Located in New York Harbor a half mile from Lower Manhattan, it was originally constructed as Fort Jay about 1794 and named in honor of New York Governor, later Secretary of State and Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, John Jay. Fort Columbus The Army rebuilt the fort and in 1806. The Democratic-Republican Party objected to negotiations of John Jay, which resulted in the Jay Treaty of 1794, wherein Great Britain resolved outstanding issues from the American Revolution. The Democratic-Republicans therefore brought about the renaming of the fort in New York harbor as Fort Columbus after famous European explorer Christopher Columbus. Fort Columbus played an important role in the military life of New York City as the largest army post defending the city. The fortification, in concert with Fort Wood on Liberty Island, Fort Gibson on Ellis Island, Castle Clinton at the Battery in Lower Manhattan, and two other fortifications on Governors Island, South Battery and Castle Williams, provided protection for New York City and Upper New York Bay. This system of coastal fortifications discouraged the British from taking any naval action against the city during the War of 1812. Peacetime role In subsequent years, Fort Wadsworth, Fort Hamilton and Fort Lafayette at the Narrows of New York Harbor reduced the need for the Upper Harbor forts, and in time, the Army transferred most properties in Upper New York Bay to other federal agencies or sold them to the state of New York. Fort Columbus, however, included , a sufficient land mass for a modest garrison at a reasonable proximity (1000 yards) from Manhattan, making it the most practical of the 1812-era forts for the Army to retain and continue to garrison. Personnel stationed at Fort Columbus began to record meteorological observations in the 1820s. As the closest major army post to the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York, Fort Columbus for many years served as a first posting or a major departure point for newly graduated cadets shipping to army posts along the Atlantic or Pacific coasts. Many future generals in the Civil War were posted to or passed through Fort Columbus as young junior officers. They included Abner Doubleday, Ulysses S. Grant, Robert E. Lee, John Bell Hood, Theophilus H. Holmes Thomas Jackson, Henry Wager Halleck, James B. McPherson, and John G. Barnard, among others. In the 1830s, the protective value of the fort to New York diminished with the advance of weapons technology, but other uses evolved for the army post. The Army renovated the fort in 1833 and established New York Arsenal, adjacent to but not part of Fort Columbus, in 1833 as a major depot for accepting delivery of privately manufactured arms and weapons and distributing privately and federally manufactured weapons to army posts across the nation. United States Army located its General Recruiting Service for infantry troops at Fort Columbus in November 1852.Smith, Edmund Banks 1913. 106. The South Battery fortification became the United States Army School of Music Practice, training young boys to play military music with drums and fifes. Role in the beginning of the Civil War Twice in early 1861, the Army secretly dispatched troops and provisions from Fort Columbus to relieve the besieged garrison at Fort Sumter in Charleston, South Carolina. Outgoing President James Buchanan initiated the first effort, but cadets from cadets from The Citadel, The Military College of South Carolina, fired on the Army-chartered New York-based steamship Star of the West on 9 January 1861 as it entered Charleston harbor. The incident provoked a crisis while other southern states began to more seriously consider secession from the Union. The second effort which marks the beginning of the Civil War also failed when it prompted South Carolina forces to fire on Fort Sumter on the early morning of 9 April 1861. During the Civil War, Fort Columbus served as a recruitment center and hospital. Fort Columbus and Castle Williams also served as a temporary prison for Confederate prisoners during the early years of the war. Division and departmental headquarters In the years after the American Civil War, New York Arsenal served as a major center for disposing of surplus and excess cannons and munitions for war memorials, scrap, or sale to foreign governments. In 1878, as part of a nation-wide cost-cutting effort, the United States Army relocated many of its administrative functions from rented quarters in large urban centers to neighboring army posts. In New York City, nearly all army functions in the city were relocated to Governors Island, making Fort Columbus the headquarters for the Division of the Atlantic and later the Department of the East. Both commands then included almost all army activities east of the Mississippi River. The prestige of a command at Fort Columbus as a premier posting ranked second only to high-ranking army positions in Washington and many commanders went on to become commanding general of the army. Its departmental commanders from the 1880s to the 1900s included Winfield Scott Hancock, Wesley Merritt, Oliver O. Howard, Nelson Miles, Arthur MacArthur, and other combat commanders in Civil War, Indian War, and Spanish-American War. Smith, Edmund Banks 1913. 158-159. Fort Jay again Secretary of War Elihu Root, an appointee of President Theodore Roosevelt, redesignated the fortification Fort Columbus as Fort Jay in February 1904, shortly before leaving office. Root, a New Yorker, admired Jay and his Federalist party. He ordered the name of the fortification restored and extended it to the army post that evolved around it on Governors Island. For more information about the fortification and army post at this location after 1904, see Fort Jay. References Additional resources * * * * * * Category:New York in the American Civil War Columbus Category:Forts in New York City Category:New York County, New York Category:American Civil War prison camps